The Dead Window

                                The Dead Window

                                 By Bob White

           The only time I really had the dream, I was crying and scared, mom and daddy screaming at me! “Find it, find it…Find It!” they hollered!

“I can’t see it.” I cried, as they tried to show me a picture…but, I couldn’t, I couldn’t  see it, and then I couldn’t see them.

Being probably about ten years old, at that age where dirty feet, black ringlets around my neck, missed baths didn’t matter. What was important was farts, shortcuts through the neighborhood, rock paper scissors, and looking up to older boys who would cuss and smoke, ring doorbells and run, and brag about a boob they had recently touched, and would not always just pick on smaller kids.

And yep, that was about my age when I first had the dream and also very close to the age when I first met Miss McNurtney, or as us kids on the block called her, Witcharella. All the parents referred to her as Mizz Mac, saying she was a poor dear soul, a lost sheep. Although, when these same parents were and out and about, probably most all of them agreed she was completely harmless, while inside the privacy of their homes they were begging their kids to stay away from her.

Trust me, I didn’t wake up that day and make plans to go and meet her, and I sure didn’t mean for my brand new rubber band powered, All American, balsa flyer to do so well that it went over her tall old wooden prison yard fence and into her giant backyard.

Why heck, I cut Old Man Jackson’s grass when it was knee deep and full of burs for the money for that flyer and a couple of marbles. I’d already lost the marbles in a keeper’s game and I wasn’t about to lose my sleek new flyer. Heck I had to go up to Old Man Jackson’s three different times just to get the money from that old geezer, and I wasn’t losing it all in one day, but no one I knew had ever been in her yard. And no one wanted to go.

So I go and find my pal from the other side of the block, Frankie. Not because Frankie offers any real help, but he does have the tallest bike I know of. Having walked completely around her big ugly fortress, I know the only way to get to my flyer is by climbing that giant ass fence, and with the taller bike as a ladder, I can do it… I think. First I need to climb up and look, make sure I see my flyer and like Frankie said. “Make sure you got a way out kid.”

Frankie was all too happy to help me out, but I was gonna have to pay him, probably just some marbles, and I knew I could win them back because Frankie was like the coolest old kid in the neighborhood, he was bad ass, but he couldn’t shoot a lick of Marbles, especially in keeper games. But no matter, I was gonna get my flyer was all I could think as we found a sweet spot to lean the bike and climb over.

I have never really known for sure if the dream started that same day or not, but I remember learning that day that it was easier to ride a bike than it was to use handlebars on one as a dag gone ladder to climb over a stupid, ugly, giant, splintery, slippery ass fence. I almost broke my neck just getting a quick peek and jumping back down.

I hit the ground and stumbled when I jumped down off the fence, and turned and looked at Frankie. He was trying not to laugh, and then got that serious sales guy look. My dad talked about that look when the door to door guys came to the house selling brushes and books, magazines, and my favorite…vacuum cleaners.

My dad said salesman would be all sweet, funny, kind, full of smiles and all of a sudden they would give you the look, my daddy said the look was saying like; buy something please anything, I need this sale please. Daddy told us all, if you couldn’t get that look and keep it until the customer bought something you would never make it in sales.

But the look must have worked, because Dad would always buy something off just about every huckster that come through our neighborhood. Heck, one time he felt so bad for this vacuum cleaner guy that he bought a brand new vacuum that used water, was supposed to be the earth shattering technology, he told Dad. Next thing I know Mom is hollering at Dad about having two like new vacuum cleaners already, and Dad saying well this is a new invention sweetie and everybody will be getting one. The one and only time I ever heard Mom cuss was fooling with that water filled damn contraption piece of junk as she called it.

Anyhow, I saw that look in Frankie’s eyes and knew he was getting ready to tell me how many marbles it was going to cost for using his bike. But he looked at me and I thought real quick and said. “Hey like you came over and helped right away and seeing as how I have three of them Mickey Mantle rookie cards, how about if I give you one of them for your trouble?”

“No man I was going to ask like ten marbles, my pick, but since you’re a good kid and it was real quick kind of, I’m only asking for five.”

I said. “OK man it’s up to you, but that card you can have forever, and you know you’ll lose those marbles in a keeper’s game, maybe even back to me, but the card you can keep until you are a grand pop or something.”

He said, “yea but if Mickey Mantle like dies or something that card will be in the wood stove, but  them marbles will last forever.”

I tried to tell him. “But they will be lasting in someone else’s marble bag man, don’t you see?”

He said. “Ok, a card, two marbles, and a couple of shooting pointers at the marble ring, when none of the big kids are around.”

So with the deal all worked out, and me and Frankie both happy, I began to share what I saw and how I was going to get back my flyer. It’s laying right in the yard, there is plenty of junk in the yard to climb back over, and even a couple of ladders next to the fence like the little lookout towers in my treehouse.

I told Frankie. “You can wait or you can leave and I’ll come see you when I get back over on this side, and if she is like a witch or something, and you never see me again… tell Mom and Daddy I said you could have all my marbles and all my baseball cards.”

“Well I am ready to do this” I told Frankie as I climbed up on his bike and straddled the fence.

Frankie smiled and said. “If it’s all the same I’m going to wait down to Willie’s Store, I still got some birthday money and I could use a ice cold grape soda, and if you make it, I’ll buy you one for being a great little kid, for getting your flyer back, safely… well you know, living to be a good big kid.” And not being done in by a witch, Frankie was thinking.

Well anyhow, I jumped down, ran to the center of the yard, bent over and picked up my flyer, stood to run back to the fence, hoping to run and climb and jump so fast I beat Frankie down to Willie’s Store, when I felt a giant witch’s hand grab me by the seat of my britches, and stop me in my tracks.

I looked up and saw…a lady, like an ordinary lady, and her hands were soft and she had pretty painted finger nails like a beauty queen, and she was smiling a little bit, and she wasn’t really an old, old lady. Why I figured she was still young enough to dance or to run if there was a fire. And she smelled like my Aunt Eugenia’s perfume, but she was way prettier than Aunt Eugenia, but not near as pretty as my mom.

I was scared but not bad enough to mess my drawers like when I was five and got scared on the roller coaster. I knew right away she wasn’t a witch. She was too pretty, not old enough, smelled too good, and I have to admit, for a second I had that feeling like I get when the older boys talk about squeezing girls boobs, especially Sally Caruther’s boobs, and I get it too sometimes if I accidently open to the ladies under wear part of the big store catalogue.

So I was glad I knew she wasn’t a witch, that helped a lot but at first I was like really fraidy cat scared. I think she knew I was scared and I think it hurt her. She right away said “Calm down little man.” That’s exactly what Mom says to me sometimes if I’m in a dither like she calls it.

She kind of bent over, put her pretty hands on my shoulders, and smiled as she told me it was okay, I could take my flyer and go through her gate if I’d like, or we could have a root beer float and talk a little bit.

Wow, it all happened so quick, my little ten year old head was spinning, what would Mom do, what would Frankie do, what should I do? I think what I finally realized was right to do, was to stay and be social, that would make the best story if it got back to Sally Caruthers. 0h, and she might even let me feel them if she believes it. But I don’t care about feeling her boobs, I just want her to be my girlfriend and if I walk away from a free root beer float, she will think I am a total dufus

So I say “Thank you very much Mis MIz Mrs Misss”

She laughed and said “Hey Call me Mac, and your name little man?”

“Erik, mam Erik with a K” I told her.

She rang a bell and the prettiest lady I ever saw in my life, dressed in like a fancy nurse’s uniform came outside said hello, and Mac said. “Two root beer floats, with Whipped cream and cherries.” The pretty girl said “yes Mac”, right away. Mac asked her to bring them to the shed.

So then Mac walked me over to a little building and we went inside and sat down at a pretty picnic table inside the little building. There wasn’t anything else in the little building, it was almost empty, and all white, with the picnic table, and one big picture hanging on the wall.

She also went into a little closet, and brought out a box with baseballs, a yo-yo, a broken kite, a real nice official league football, and a fancy cigarette lighter. She explained that these were other things that had somehow wound up inside her fence.

Then Marybeth, the lady that looked like a beautiful nurse came in with two giant root beer floats, Frankie would scream, he loves root beer.

She toasted like at a wedding, and told me I could have everything in the box except for the lighter, I’d have to be older for that. She seemed to know how people felt about her, but admired my bravery and next time I could just knock on her door and visit anytime.

She was a really nice lady and the root beer float was like way better than the ones at Murphy’s Malts and that was saying something. She started telling me about the fence, her stories, a few like rules but not really rules she said, and homeless creatures, and people, and she was nice about all of it. I wish I had listened better, but I was like staring at the picture of the wall. So I wasn’t being rude, but that picture was spooky and her words weren’t sinking in that good. She kept mentioning coming back and stuff, so I looked like I was listening but I could not quit looking at that picture. I figured next time we’d meet in another spot and I could listen because I would not see that picture. The only thing on the wall.

The picture was just a plain old picture, but it gave me the Heebie Jeebies, and I couldn’t 

keep myself from looking at it. I was just a little kid, but the picture seemed lonely on the big white wall, and it made feel lonely, even though she was very nice and she just talked and talked and talked, and I looked and looked and looked. I can’t explain it, but that picture even through all her talking made me feel not only lonely, but scared, needful, sad, and just plain weird, the Heebie Jeebies.

I remember that picture to this day for some reason, too much stuff is dead in the

picture, and not just because it’s black and white; the sky looks dead, the house looks dead, the trees dead, the vines so close to dead, and so ugly, and the window is stone cold dead the air even looks dead. Then before you can look away, in your mind you see all the things you wish were dead and can feel them living; spiders, rats, snakes, bugs, a wild man living behind the dead window. I couldn’t look away.

           Well we finished up, she hugged me, her big boobs were touching my head, I got that feeling again real bad and thought about Sally and almost wondered what Mac would do if I squeezed her big boobs that she had laying on my head. She gave me all the things in the box from her yard, let me out the gate, and made me promise to come back tomorrow afternoon if I could. I agreed and took off for Willie’s.

           When I  got to Willie’s and told Frankie what happened, he told me I didn’t owe him nothing, no card, no marbles, but he’d love a few pointers anytime, anywhere, because I was bad ass and if the older guys cared, screw ‘em because I was bad ass. He did politely renege on the ice cold grape soda, and pinky swore that the yo-yo was his, and he is a yo-yo guy and I’m not, so I gave him the yo-yo, and he gave me my decision. I was going back tomorrow no matter what and see Mac, and just hope we meet in her house so I don’t have to look at that stupid picture.

           The next day I wake up and the whole world is different, I feel like Sally Caruthers might soon pull my hair, get googly eyed at me, or take my hands and put them on her boobs like she did with Gary J. Fields on field day last year. I feel so good, I’m going to go cut Old Man Jackson’s grass and make him pay me today. Then I will go and visit Mac, hopefully in her house and not the shed.

           When I get to Mac’s, I knock on the gate and an old man in a suit lets me in and says. “Hello Erik, Erik with a K, Mac is waiting for you and says you are having lunch; Cheeseburgers, potato chips and ice cream with root beer sound good?”

           “Yes sir.” I tell him, and I am pleased because he is walking toward the house and away from the shed. Mac meets us on the way, she hugs me with a real quick squeeze and says today she has me a present, and she will talk to me about why she prefers, and she says that word like preeeferrzzz, to be alone.

 We go in the door, walk inside a big dark hall, and then into a giant room with white walls and a picnic table, a pretty picnic table, and completely bare except for that picture, the same ugly, eerie, picture of dying good stuff and living bad stuff, except bigger, uglier and eerier.

We sit down, eat lunch, she talks, I feel the picture staring back at me, she just talks. I look at the picture and I realize the picture really makes me feel dead, completely alone in the picture, in the window, and dead.

She gives me a real nice puzzle for a gift, and asks me when can I come back and we make another lunch date as she calls it, but I just agree without listening because I know I am not coming back ever.

I wonder if that could be the picture that I was never able to see the time I really had the dream. I am glad I didn’t really have the dream again, I just dreamed that I had the dream.

The End